A Boy Called Duct Tape

by Christopher Cloud

  “It’s a personality trait you overlook if you want something bad enough,” I said.

  Kiki laughed. “Good one, primo!”

  “When you enter a hotel,” I said, “you’re in the hotel lobby. That’s the first thing you come to.” I laid a finger on the map’s designation called the Hotel Lobby. It was a short distance from the Cave Entrance.

  “That makes sense,” Kiki said, her eyes trained on the map. “So the first thing you come to in the Jesse James cave is—”

  “—the Hotel Lobby,” I finished.

  We were seated in our customary booth at Lyda’s Café, the one-dollar treasure map stretched out on the table before us. We were trying to make sense of the old drawing. We had established one fact: The long journey inside the cave started at the Hotel Lobby.

  “What about the …?” Pia was verbally in over her head, and she looked at me, her finger resting on the map’s next stop.

  “Boulevard of Chandeliers,” I said, pronouncing each word distinctly.

  “Yeah, what you just said,” Pia said.

  “I have an idea about that,” Kiki said, looking up from the map. “You know those rock formations that hang down from cave ceilings? I’ll bet that’s what the mapmaker meant by Boulevard of Chandeliers. I can’t remember if they’re called stalactites or stalagmites.”

  “I remember this from science,” I said. “Stalactites are fastened tight to the ceiling. Stalagmites might grow to the ceiling. It couldn’t be anything else. It’s a long tunnel or cavern filled with stalactites hanging from the ceiling like chandeliers.”

  “But it’s this Death Cake thing that has me confused,” Kiki said, pointing to the words written longhand on the map. Death Cake was the next stop after the Boulevard of Chandeliers on the curving, twisting route to the treasure. “Confused and a little scared. What the heck could that possibly be? How could a cake kill you? Unless you ate it.”

  “Maybe some sort of trap,” I speculated.

  Pia’s eyes grew wide and she uttered a soft moan.

  “It’s okay, Pia,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if it was true. “The person who drew this map probably wanted to scare people away from searching for the treasure.” I took a sip of my drink.

  “Oh.” Pia didn’t seem convinced.

  “The only thing I can imagine is a rock formation shaped like a big cake,” Kiki offered, “but that doesn’t seem possible and besides, how could that kill a person?”

  “This location is a little easier to understand,” I said, gazing at the next designation: Lake With Dam. “It’s probably some sort of underground lake or pond with a—what else?—dam.”

  “What could have made the dam?” Pia asked.

  I shook my head. “Don’t know.”

  “Maybe beavers.” Pia beamed. “They’re good at making dams.”

  I gave a gentle laugh. “No beavers in caves, Pia. In fact, no animals of any kind.” I looked at Kiki. “Are there?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  My eyes moved from Lake With Dam to the next stop: Church Organ. “I can’t even guess what Church Organ might be.” I looked at Kiki. “You?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe Jesse James carried a big old church organ into the cave,” Pia said. “Maybe he liked to play the organ.”

  I shrugged. It made as much sense as anything I could come up with.

  Kiki moved her finger to the next spot on the map: Room of Ghosts. She seemed at a loss to explain it. “I’m not sure …” was as far as Kiki could get. She seemed uneasy.

  “Is it a room full of ghosts, Pablo?” Pia asked, her eyes fixed on mine.

  I was quick to answer. “No such thing as ghosts.” I could offer no more of an explanation because I was also clueless about the name.

  “Then why did someone write Room of Ghosts?” Pia continued, her dark eyes filled with uncertainty.

  “I agree with Pablo. The mapmaker wanted to scare people away from searching for the treasure,” Kiki said.

  “They’re doing a good job of it,” I said with an anxious grin. It quickly melted away.

  “Uh, if there are ghosts in that room,” Pia said, “then there must be ghosts everywhere. Ghosts don’t just stay in one place.” She removed her straw from her drink and sucked it dry.

  “I’ll bet the words are like some sort of symbol for something else,” I said, trying my best to recover the grin.

  “What kind of something else?” Pia urged.

  “Maybe they’re rock formations or something that looks like ghosts,” I said. “But there is no such thing as ghosts.”

  “You’re only 12, Pablo,” Pia reminded me. “You don’t know everything about ghosts.”

  Pia was right, and I shrugged. “I guess we’ll know when we get there.”

  “Mother Nature must have created something that looks like pictures on the walls,” Kiki added. “Some sort of—like Pablo said—natural formations.”

  “Or somebody drew them,” I suggested. I didn’t know if I believed that or not. Room of Ghosts. That was way too weird.

  “Right. Or somebody drew them,” Kiki agreed.

  “Maybe somebody lives down there,” Pia said, her voice solemn.

  I started to laugh, but stopped myself at the last moment. Maybe Pia was right.

  Total silence.

  “Somebody had to make that dam,” Pia said. “And somebody had to carry that church organ down there.”

  “If somebody lives down there,” Kiki said, her eyes blinking anxiously, “I don’t even want to know about it. Count me out.”

  “I don’t think anyone lives down there,” I said. “What the heck would they eat?”

  More silence.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Kiki said. She moved her finger along the map until it came to rest on the Graveyard. “More creepiness. A graveyard can only mean one thing.”

  “What?” Pia asked.

  “Well, uh, like dead bodies,” Kiki said, her brow knitted.

  “Maybe an animal graveyard,” I said. “I’ve heard of pet cemeteries. Maybe it’s something like that.”

  Kiki shuddered, and moved on to the next point on the map: Magic Rock. “What’s so magical about a rock?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t even guess.

  “I think I know what the maker of this map meant by the Cathedral,” Kiki said, tapping the final location on the drawing. “My guess is that it’s a really big cavern, sort of like a church cathedral.”

  “I agree,” I said. I’d made the same observation the first time I’d looked at the map.

  “That’s where the treasure is, right?” Pia asked, noting the X near the word Cathedral.

  “Yeah, if there is a treasure,” Kiki said.

  “You mean if there’s even a cave,” I noted.

  We settled in with our own thoughts.

  Kiki looked up with a wide grin. “Wouldn’t it be cool if this map was authentic, and it had been in plain sight all these years?”

  My eyes lit up. “Very cool.”

  “So are we ready to do this?” Kiki asked, looking at me and then Pia.

  “You bet!” I exclaimed.

  “Pablo, are you sure?” Pia asked, squirming a little in her seat.

  “Sure about exploring the cave? Yeah, I’m sure.”

  She shook her head. “No, not that.”

  I could hear the hesitation in my sister’s voice. I said, “Sure about what?”

  “Are you sure nobody lives down there?”

  10

  We laid our bikes in the tall grass in front of Monroe Huff’s cabin and stared wide-eyed at the bloody carcass. The hunk of raw meat was suspended by a rope from the rocky overhang that protected Monroe’s log home. It was the size of a deer. Monroe had skinned the animal, and now stood beside it, his knife poised above the deer’s belly.

  The big black crow we’d seen the day before was still perched on the same lower branch of a towering oak tree. The bird studied our ever
y move.

  Monroe was barefoot. He was wearing knee-length, plaid shorts, and a blood-splattered T-shirt that read: A Spelunker’s Prayer. The prayer itself was spotted with bloodstains. Monroe’s strange, side-shield sunglasses protected his eyes from the bright afternoon sunlight.

  “Gross!” Pia moaned. “What’s that?”

  “A deer,” I said, my eyes tracing the bloody animal corpse.

  “Or what’s left of one,” Kiki observed, wincing.

  The muscles in his neck bulging, Monroe’s knife slid down the pink belly of the carcass, opening up the stomach. He stepped back, and blood, intestines, and a bunch of organs I couldn’t identify splashed onto the ground.

  “Double gross!” Pia groaned, turning away.

  “Pablo, is this the man we want to entrust with our lives?” Kiki asked in a hushed voice.

  Monroe inserted his hand into the stomach and scooped more stuff out.

  “I would rate his survival skills high,” I said, trying to put a positive spin on the gruesome scene. “Isn’t that the kind of guide we want?” I could picture Monroe living on the frontier two hundred years ago with a coonskin hat and a flintlock rifle.

  “I suppose so,” Kiki admitted. “But we don’t even know if he’ll agree to be our guide.”

  “After I tell him what I found in the river, he’ll work for us,” I said.

  “Yeah, and we have the map, too,” Pia reminded.

  “Let’s not talk about the map right now,” I said.

  Pia shaded the sun from her eyes and looked over at me. “Why?”

  “Uh, Monroe might not be as impressed with a one-dollar treasure map as we are,” Kiki said.

  We went over to where Monroe stood cleaning the last gunk from the deer.

  “It’s tomorrow,” I said with a slight quiver in my voice. Monroe was just as scary looking today as he had been the day before.

  Sweat rolled down Monroe’s wide, flat face, and his T-shirt was soaked. He cleaned the blade of his knife on his baggy shorts, cut something loose from the poor animal’s stomach cavity, and discarded it with a flip of his wrist. The intestine flew through the air like some sort of flying snake, and landed in the tall grass not far from our bikes.

  “So it is,” Monroe said, not even bothering to turn toward us. “And here you are.”

  “And here we are,” Kiki said.

  The crow was on the move now, and it let loose with a sharp CAW. I flinched and turned toward the bird as it swooped down on the piece of gut Monroe had tossed into the grass. Landing in the tall grass, the crow picked up the raw meat in its beak, then flew back to the tree branch and began to feast.

  Monroe had sliced a chunk of flesh from the back of his hand, and his own blood mixed on the ground with that of the butchered deer.

  “You’ve cut your hand, Mr. Huff,” Pia said, recoiling at the sight.

  From behind his sunglasses, the Caveman looked at his hand with cool disinterest. “Appears so,” he said, opening a metal toolbox at his feet and rummaging around in it until he found a clean rag. He wrapped the rag around the cut on his hand, and looked at us for the first time, a grin dancing across his face.

  “Did you ask yourselves the question?” Monroe said. “Will traveling deep inside the womb of Mother Cave bring you closer to the one true God?”

  “Don’t know about that,” I said. “We just want to hire a guide.” It seemed to me that Monroe was playing games. I was tired of games. I was ready to get down to the business of finding more gold coins.

  Monroe looked past me. “Morning, sweet pea.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Huff,” Pia said, a half-smile on her face.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “Car accident,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, sweet pea.”

  “That’s okay, it doesn’t hurt much anymore,” Pia replied.

  “I’m happy to know that,” Monroe said.

  “What’s a spelunker’s prayer?” Pia asked, reading Monroe’s bloodstained T-shirt.

  “The eight most important words in the English language,” Monroe said with an apelike grin.

  “What are they?”

  “Dear Lord, help me find my way out.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can we talk?” I asked, the irritation coming through in my voice.

  Monroe huffed, and tossed his knife into the metal box. “Sure, let’s talk.”

  We went inside his one-room cabin. It was still as dark as a tomb.

  Pushing his sunglasses back on his head, Monroe went to the sink and washed the blood from his arms. He wrapped a clean dishtowel around the cut on his hand as we crowded in on the tiny sofa.

  The radio was still tuned to the classical music station out of Springfield. Pavarotti was about to sing something from “Rigoletto,” the announcer said.

  It must be Pavarotti week, I thought, whoever that is.

  Monroe walked over and turned the volume down, and then dropped into his rocking chair.

  “Where’s your cat today?” Kiki asked, peering into the dark corners.

  Sucking on his teeth, Monroe said, “I ate her for breakfast.”

  I felt my Adam’s apple click in my throat, and a tiny whimper arose from Pia. Kiki’s eyes popped wide, and all the blood drained from her face.

  “I can feel my heart beating, Pablo,” Pia said.

  Monroe played the hoax for several seconds before breaking into laughter. “Gotcha!”

  He whistled softly and the longhaired cat strolled out from under the bed. It paused to arch its back, and then bounced up onto Monroe’s lap, sniffing at the splotchy dishtowel wrapped around his hand.

  “Well,” Kiki said, blowing out a big breath of air. “I believe we have ourselves a budding comedian.”

  “I can still feel my heart beating,” Pia said, placing a hand over her chest.

  I shook my head, a smile itching to get out.

  “Who’s following you kids?” Monroe asked, his tone suddenly all business.

  “Following us?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Pablo Perez, you’d have to be blind not to know,” Monroe complained. “The thing is, they’re not real good at staying hidden.” Cradling the cat in his arm, he got up and went over to the window. He dropped his sunglasses over his eyes, pulled back the shabby curtain, and then peered outside. “I could almost hit them with a rock.” He glanced over his shoulder at us. “Come take a look.”

  We got up and went over to where Monroe stood at the window.

  “Look up in the ranger tower,” Monroe said, gesturing at the abandoned observation post, which rose above the forest canopy a quarter-mile away. The tower was silhouetted against the summer sky like the watch steeple of a medieval castle.

  I spotted two dark figures moving about in the loft of the deserted structure. “I see them.”

  “Looks like two men,” Kiki said, peering over my shoulder.

  “Why would anyone be following you?” Monroe asked, dropping the curtain back into place and returning to his rocking chair. “They followed you here yesterday, too.” He pushed his sunglasses back up onto his head.

  The three of us squeezed back onto the sofa.

  “We had a coin,” I said. “I’ll bet those are the men who stole it.”

  We had biked past the Blood Brothers Trading Store that morning. The SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED sign was still in the window. I had peeked inside, but the pawnshop was coal black.

  “They must think we’ll lead them to more coins,” I said, my anger starting to boil at the thought of Earl Blood switching coins.

  “What kind of coin?” Monroe asked, his rocking chair creaking beneath him.

  Pia glanced at me and I gave her a nod. “A twenty-dollar gold piece, Mr. Huff,” she said.

  “And …?” Monroe said.

  “And we think it could be from the Jesse James treasure everyone talks about,” Kiki said.

  I expected Monroe to throw back his head, slap his knee and burst in
to laughter. Then, as he was laughing, he’d get up with his best good-bye face and point towards the door. But he didn’t.

  “Let’s see this twenty-dollar gold piece.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “We showed it to those men and they switched coins. They tricked us.”

  “Who tricked you?”

  “They’re called the Blood brothers,” I said. “They own a pawnshop in Jamesville.”

  Monroe nodded. “Not to be trusted.”

  “We know that now,” Kiki said in an edgy voice.

  “Where’d this coin come from?” Monroe’s deep-set eyes swept over us.

  I told Monroe the story of how I had found the coin at the bottom of the James Creek while Pia and I were swimming, and how I believed the coin had been washed out of Bear Mountain by the underground spring that feeds into Harper’s Hole.

  Monroe listened quietly, nodding from time to time while stroking his cat, which was curled up on his lap.

  I said we had a map showing a cave on the west side of Bear Mountain. The map charted a route through the cave to the Jesse James treasure. I told him the date on the coin and the date of the famous Jesse James train robbery outside Glendale, Missouri were the same. I said $20 gold coins were stolen in the robbery. I concluded my story by saying I believed the coin I found might have come from the Jesse James treasure. I could tell from Monroe’s eyes that he was interested in my wild tale.

  It was the first time I had told the story from beginning to end, and it sounded believable. There was only one small problem … the map.

  “Let’s see the map,” Monroe said.

  I had no desire to show Monroe our one-dollar treasure map. It looked more like a toy map than a real map. Monroe would freak out when he saw it.

  “We’ll show you the map when we get to Bear Mountain,” I said, trying to buy some time. “The map shows a cave entrance on the west side of Bear Mountain about halfway to the summit. The cave leads to the treasure.”

  Monroe glared at me. “You say you had a coin, but it was stolen. You say you have a map, but you won’t show it to me.” He shook his head. “Pretty flimsy reason for poor old Monroe to go chasing shadows in the dark. Talk is cheap.”